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Yazidi woman flees Germany after encountering her Islamic State captor in the street

Lewis Sanders IV, Deutsche Welle
Published 6:58 a.m. ET Aug. 17, 2018

Yazidi woman Ashwaq Haji, allegedly used by the Islamic State as a sex slave, visits the Lalish temple in tribute to the jihadists' victims from her village of Kocho near Sinjar, in Lalish, northern Iraq, on August 15, 2018. Haji, 19, says she ran into her captor in a German supermarket in February. Traumatized by the encounter, she returned to Iraq the next month.(Photo: AFP/Getty)

A young Yazidi woman has fled Germany with her family after encountering the Islamic State (ISIS) fighter who had enslaved her in Mosul on the streets of Schwäbisch Gmünd, a town in Baden-Württemberg.

Ashwaq Haji Hamid arrived in the southwestern state with her family in 2015 through a program aimed at assisting Yazidi women who had been subjected to violence by ISIS.

In 2014, ISIS committed what the United Nations concluded was a genocide of Yazidis in northern Iraq. The militant group also abducted scores of women and children, who were sold into slavery.

But while attempting to leave her past behind, she encountered her tormenter, who had kept her as a slave for 10 months.

"I ran away from Iraq so I would not see that ugly face and forget anything that reminds me of it, but I was shocked to see him in Germany," Ashwaq Haji Hamid told InfoMigrants, a news site about migration run by DW, France Medias Monde and Italy's ANSA agency.

This is Ashwaq, a Yazidi girl who was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 when the terrorist group attacked Kurdistan-Iraq. After her escape and her migration to Germany, she met the man who had bought her as a slave, walking around freely in Germany. This is unacceptable! pic.twitter.com/rIYYhP9nmQ

"The first time was in 2016," she said. "He was chasing me. He was the same person, but the second time, he came close to me and told me he knew everything about me."

Hamid said she wanted to start a new life in Germany after facing atrocities by ISIS. She had notified police about the case, but added that it was impossible to feel safe knowing her former captor was still out there.

"If I had not seen him, I would have stayed in Germany. I wanted to complete my studies and get a degree that would give me a decent life," she said.

Police in Baden-Württemberg, where the woman saw her alleged kidnapper, took over investigations in March, but was later handed over the to federal prosecutors. Authorities said they have been unable to identify the man.

The investigation could not progress further because the "witness is currently unavailable" since she is no longer in the country, Baden-Württemberg police said in a tweet on Wednesday.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office told Die Welt newspaper that preliminary proceedings into the case have been pending since July.

Hamid's father said their family is still at risk of ISIS' reach in Iraq, especially after his daughter came forward to tell her story. He said he was hoping to reach a country where they could finally feel safe.

"I want nothing from the German government except for that man to be punished, for them to realize that there a lot of other women in Germany who have stories similar to mine, and to protect them from ISIS in Germany," Hamid said.

This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.